


let the future fall into place

by GayNidoKing



Series: Silver, Crimson, Black [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Cullen critical, Jealousy, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Nudity, Obsession, One-Sided Attraction, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-28 21:26:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20432690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GayNidoKing/pseuds/GayNidoKing
Summary: The image of her body stretched before him was one that never left his mind. She was intoxicating to watch. She was pure will, aloof confidence, and unbridled power. He knew this was wrong, that she was a mage and these thoughts were dangerous. But how could he help himself? What were Templars for, if not to protect those who couldn't protect themselves? How could he protect her if he could not even look at her?And so he kept looking.A brief insight into the mind of Cullen Rutherford during the first months of his living at the Circle Tower of Ferelden. There is, for the most part, just one thing on his mind. Or, rather, one person.





	let the future fall into place

**Author's Note:**

> Finally getting back into the swing of writing this series.
> 
> A companion to 'your fantasy is my legacy', but can be read separately. Like most of Silver, Crimson, Black, this work has a companion song. The song for this little delight is "She" by Tyler the Creator, and the title is the only lyrics from that song that I felt comfortable using lol The warnings for the song are exactly the same as the fic, and then some.

It was everything he wanted. He stood on the banks of Lake Calenhad for a few minutes unmoving, in awe of the sheer size of the Circle that was to be his home. The other Templars only teased him a little bit at his initial gaping, no more than was friendly. They _understood_. The others were awed as well, though they didn’t show it on their faces as openly. He wasn’t the only new recruit coming to the Circle, but he was the youngest. That was an interesting change of pace.

He was supposed to feel small and pointless, he thought, in the presence of such a massive structure, but he didn’t. He felt kind of…inspired, actually. He was one more stone that made up the mighty wall. He was one defender of many, a small but important part of a greater whole. It filled his chest with warmth and pride, but he couldn’t help the nervous shudder of his breath.

“Bit bigger than the Chantry back home, isn’t it?” The older guard clapped his shoulder strongly, grinning wide enough to rival the crescent moon. “Welcome home.”

Cullen’s tongue was heavy in his mouth as he clambered into the boat. He was in the first group across.

“It’s bigger than anything I’ve ever seen,” he blurted out, and he meant it. He’d seen mountains before, but they seemed _smaller_ than this, and less grand.

The guard laughed again, this time with a bit more teasing. “Small town you come from, huh?”

“Yes,” he answered, and it was all he could say. Between the rocking of the waves and the Tower growing _larger_ and _larger_ as he approached, he felt like he could barely breathe.

He kept breathing, and the Tower kept growing, and the night marched on.

_Home_. This was home now. It was a bittersweet thought, and he couldn’t deny that he shed a few tears that night as he penned his letter home. His sisters were nothing but supportive, but even they couldn’t fault him feeling overwhelmed.

That night he stared at the bottom of the bunk above his for hours, too excited to sleep and too exhausted to get up and occupy himself.

_This is happening,_ he realized. _I’m a Templar._

It was hard to keep that awe up on the job. He learned his patrol route with zeal, dedicated himself to every extra practice and study that was offered him, and memorized everything he needed to memorize. He began to notice the small tells, the tics, what to look for in a mage going bad. He began to listen to the gossip of the guards, who had nothing better to do with their free time than pick at one another. He began to memorize the faces of those mages who were important, learned their names and their routines.

It was…oh, Maker, he was mortified to admit it. It was a little bit _boring_. Something he never thought he’d miss about his home, or his training, was how _loud_ things could get sometimes. The Templars here had fun, sure, but there was nothing like the festival nights or the days when the children had a bit more energy than usual. There were children in the Circle, but they never laughed or played like he was used to. There was never any celebration, unless it was a Templar’s birthday, and that was a quiet affair usually.

He loved his job, he just…it got _depressing_ sometimes, with no change in his routine.

And then…and then it happened. His tenure at the Circle Tower went from contented, if a little bored and homesick, to…anything but. A whirlwind of excitement and fear and wonder. It happened quickly, less than a month after he first arrived, but he couldn’t remember anymore what life was like before.

It was a laugh, the first sign of unbridled joy he’d heard in this place. It burst from an open door like a bird into flight, and continued long past Irving assuring it that the incident was _not_ that funny. He couldn’t help looking into the door, and immediately he was caught. She was sitting in a chair that half-faced the door, one knee pulled up to her chest. Her red hair was an explosion around her face, which dazzled him with its smile. When she finally spoke, the laughter abating, her voice was deep and smooth, with a slight accent he couldn’t place. She was unlike anything he’d seen before.

The first thing he knew about Surana was that laugh, closely followed by her smile. The second thing he knew was that those were rare things, a privilege to behold, and he was one of the very few lucky enough. The second he and Gregoir made their presence known at the door, her smile was gone, and he would never have known she was anything other than Irving’s star pupil, as dedicated and studious in her craft as he had been in his.

She was beautiful. That was objective fact. With her broad nose and big elven eyes, her long ears and her untamed hair, she was _beautiful_. She had a long thin staff that she cradled against her shoulder, with a carved grinning wolf at its head. It was an odd choice, he thought, to give her something so at odds with the rest of her. Her robes were green and red and purple, bright and soft. Her hands were slow-moving and careful and dainty, curled into loose fists underneath her chin. She turned her head, but she didn’t look at him. Why did he want her to look at him?

She stood as he entered the room, and he was unprepared for how much _smaller_ she was. It wasn’t until she took a few steps that he realized the staff was not a staff. Or, rather, it _was_, but it wasn’t _just_ a staff. She tapped the floor in front of her feet before she stepped, and though she turned her face up to him, her eyes didn’t focus on his face.

_She’s blind_, he realized as he watched her eyes roam around the room lazily. Something in his chest lurched, and he wanted to cross the room, take her hand in his, and…and...he didn’t know.

Irving introduced her, and she was quick to interrupt him, insisting he introduce her as “Surana,” rather than reveal her first name. She had a stern voice, like a mother or a Mother, that didn’t take _no_ for an answer. She bowed her head and repeated his name with the same stern tone, and it sent a shiver down his spine.

Cullen learned her name later anyway.

_Lazare_.

It was Antivan, Gregoir told him. Why she’d come here instead of an Antivan Circle he didn’t know, but Cullen found himself foolishly thinking that it must have been fate. What else could it have been? He was already living his dream and then…and then there was _her_, too, to bewitch him.

What a strange beautiful thing to put in his path. An Antivan elf, blind and colorful and small.

She had a very predictable schedule…or maybe it just aligned very well with his patrol. Once he knew to look for her, he realized he’d seen her every day since arriving. Daily he saw her enter the library on the arm of another mage. He found himself watching them as they went about their way. It was easy enough to follow them, since that was literally his job. He just kept his distance and walked lightly, keeping one eye on her and one on the rest of his charges.

The other man read to her, and talked to her. She leaned in to hear him, so close that his mouth was practically on her ear. His stomach squirmed uncomfortably as he watched. Did she realize they were so close? Did she even know what it _meant_ to be so close?

His stomach dropped at the implication that she knew what it looked like, and that was precisely what was going on.

He just wanted to make sure the man wasn’t taking advantage of her, he told himself. A man like that looked like the type to do something like that. Lazare was so trusting, and she needed help with basic things, and it would be easy to take advantage of her.

He was just looking out for her.

He never learned the name of the other mage, but a few times he heard Lazare call him “brother,” and that put him somewhat at ease. He listened to the other mages gossip, and learned that that seemed to be exactly the case. They were close, like a brother and a sister.

_All the more reason she would let her guard down_, he thought as he laid in bed, and he vowed he would not let that happen.

He continued to watch them together, hand on his sword should anything ever happen.

The longer he watched her (not that he was _watching_ her; she was a very active apprentice and impossible to ignore if she was in the room), the more he knew her, and the more he found himself thinking about her.

She may have been physically weak and disabled, but her mind was so _strong_. Sometimes he heard her discussing theories or concepts with Irving that he couldn’t even comprehend, and she always spoke with such _confidence_. She walked like she knew the world was going to get out of her way, and Cullen knew he wasn’t the only one rushing to make it true. She was confident, in the faces of other mages (who mocked her and treated her as though she was stupid) and in the faces of the Templars (who tried to intimidate her as if her will was not the most awe-inspiring thing about her).

She was a bit of a brat, Gregoir said, but she was one they didn’t consider would ever give in to a demon. Cullen believed it. He couldn’t imagine her giving in to _anything_.

The first conversation they had was a disaster, and that only made her continued tolerance of him that more of a gift.

“Pardon me…is the library closed?”

He hadn’t noticed her approach, unused to seeing her alone. She stood just beside him, a bit closer to the closed door than anyone else would have stood, but her face was turned slightly to him.

“Oh, um…” He tried to find the words, but her eyes briefly moved up to meet his and, in that moment, he found himself struck dumb. He was so close to her that he could see the freckles across her face, could see them climb up her cheeks toward her ears, and down her neck before vanishing below the collar of her robes. “Yes…wait, no! Wait…yes, I mean, no…there’s an accident. There _was_ an accident, I mean. Yeah.”

She frowned, one eyebrow raising slightly. “Are you alright?” she asked, and he couldn’t bear to think he imagined the concern in her voice. She hid it well. She took a step back, and then another, and turned to face him. She pulled her staff to her shoulder and wrapped her hands around it like it was a lifeline and she was drowning. He felt that urge again, to reach out and take her hands. He wanted to squeeze them and kiss them, and tell them there was no reason to look so anxious.

Instead, he awkwardly rubbed the back of his head and barked out a laugh. “Oh, yes, I’m fine. I’m just…I’m just fine.” He swallowed hard. “Are you, um…alright?”

Her other eyebrow joined its twin in the upper half of her forehead, and her mouth twitched. “_I’m_ fine. _You_ sound like you can’t breathe.”

“Must be…something in the air?”

He wasn’t expecting her to laugh. It wasn’t like the one before, just a small, smile-less chuckle that she stifled quickly. But it was a treasured gift. For the next hour or so, he stood stunned, unable to believe he’d said something that made her _laugh._

He got more confident, greeting her as she passed. She always responded, with a nod or sometimes with a, “Ser,” but she didn’t say his name again. He wondered if she’d forgotten it.

He began to see her more often when he was assigned night patrols. She wandered at night, the other Templars warned him. She never did anything suspicious, just walked around until she got tired and wandered back the apprentices’ quarters. He was worried, the first time he found her, that she _was_ doing something illicit and he would have to punish her somehow, but no. She really did just wander.

He escorted her back to her quarters a few times, when she was obviously too tired to find her way back on her own. She fit so easily on his arm, and when he wished her a good night, she always said it back.

The other Templars noticed his “crush.” He insisted that wasn’t what it was: she was the Senior Enchanter’s star pupil! She frequented his patrol spots, and was often alone. She was _blind_, for Maker’s sake! What were Templars here for, if not to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves?

He didn’t convince them, and he didn’t convince himself either. He wasn’t a _complete_ idiot, and he knew what it meant when the squirming moved from his stomach up to his chest and down to his…well. _Down_.

It was a long time before he saw her vulnerable again.

It was another stroke of fate, he thought, even as it made his stomach twist and churn. He’d heard of the peephole from a few of the other Templars, who’d laughed at it over dinner a few nights before. Some of them made a habit of going, gawking and gaping at how the mages acted when they didn’t know they were being watched. Not wanting to be left out, Cullen decided to take a look at it, but he was too nervous to go when anyone would actually _be_ there. He purposefully chose a time when all the apprentices were in lessons and all the mages were upstairs, and there would be no one.

It was just his luck, he supposed, that this was the precise moment she decided to take a bath.

He’d relaxed at first, when he peered through the small hole and saw a dark, empty room. Even the beds were empty. It was quiet, and still. He let out a loud breath.

Then, the sound of water moving against the side of the wooden tub and a deep heavy sigh followed by a groaned, “_Gods._”

His eyes found her easily after that, head thrown back, eyes staring unfocused at the ceiling.

His heart nearly stopped beating.

She was more relaxed than he’d ever seen her, in this moment that she thought she was alone. There was no tension in her bare shoulders, in her hands. They hung loosely over the edge of the tub, idly tapping a tune. Her cane was forgotten a few feet away, dropped underneath a pile of untidily discarded clothes.

The tub was too small even for her to lay comfortably. Her knees peeked over the edges. When she was alone, she spread her legs wide. He could see freckles on the insides of her knees and upper thighs.

His mouth was dry, but his muscles were stone. He couldn’t move, couldn’t avert his eyes. He just held his breath, and watched.

Her hair clung to her face, her neck, her exposed chest, dark flames crossing over her dark skin. She looked like a painting, like a picture painted on the cover of an exciting novel. He could see her, of course, but all of her…_her_ was hidden. If he was taller, if the hole were just a bit higher…

Eventually, she stopped just lying there and, with the same sure purpose as everything else she did, she began to wash herself. His eyes followed her hands hungrily, moving with familiarity over the planes of her body. Mountains, and valleys, and rivers, and waterfalls, all on the surface of her skin. She sat on the lip of the tub at one point, back to him, bent as she washed her feet and legs.

She began to sing, too low for him to hear the words, but just loud enough to catch him in the melody. Her voice echoed through the mostly-empty room; all the other apprentices were on the other end of the room on the other side of the wall, sleeping or talking. It was a sad song, lonely and longing, and he would’ve sung along if he knew the words.

He’d seen a woman before, twice, before he’d come here. He’d read books, too, and listened to the gossip of older men. But there was something _different_ about her. Maybe it was because she was elven, and her frame was subtly different from human women. Maybe it was because she was a mage, with no muscle and more fat, round and soft and…

He’d heard once that elves didn’t have body hair. His surprise was not pleasant or unpleasant…it simply was.

She was _intoxicating_ to watch. She was pure will, aloof confidence, and unbridled power. Even naked and vulnerable, she seemed so formidable, a fortress of a woman daring him to dash himself against her walls. He knew this was wrong, that she was a mage and these thoughts were dangerous. But how could he help himself. She was so bright, so hot. She was Andraste and the flame, a heretic alight by her own righteous fury.

Her song ended on one mournful note, and she shook her hair out vigorously.

When she stepped out, shivering in the cool, she stretched her arms up to the sky above, letting out another strong moan. Standing alone and nude in the half-dark, she looked like a force to be reckoned with, a tempting, bewitching thing.

She dressed quickly, and left the bathing chamber without ceremony, leaving him alone to his memory and a growing tightness in his gut.

He never went to the peephole again, but the image of her body stretched before him was one that never left his mind, and reappeared frequently in his dreams. Shamefully, he conjured it when he was alone, when he was lonely.

Every time he saw her, he felt like he was going mad. His mind went blank, unable to comprehend anything but the lavender scent she wore and the determined set of her mouth. He found himself listening for her voice in crowds, searching for her red hair in a crowd.

It was a cruel joke, he thought, that he was assigned to her Harrowing. It wasn’t a surprise, necessarily. Greagoir said he’d handled all of his Harrowings very well, and it was an honor to be trusted once again. But he couldn’t stop himself from choking when she entered the room, in the robes she’d slept in.

Even half-asleep, half-dressed, surrounded by Templars, she shone. She lifted her chin and told Greagoir she was ready, and she _meant_ it. She didn’t shy away from the lyrium, from the weighty creak of every Templar in the room placing a hand on their sword.

He could see her face as she approached the pedestal. So he saw it when, for the briefest instant, she was _afraid_. The expression passed as quickly as it’d come, but he knew it was there. She was confident…but only mortal.

That only made him want to hold her tighter.

As he watched her slip into the Fade, he felt something in his gut. It felt like…it felt like fate. This was his home, and this was his life. He stood, a vigilant protector against the evils of magic, and she stood, a beacon of magic. They were locked together in this dance, in this orbit around each other. Sometimes, he could feel them drifting closer, and he longed to close the gap. Maker only knew what would happen when he did.


End file.
